Multi-user virtual workspaces
Scape: Supporting Stereoscopic Collaboration in Augmented and Projective Environments
-Hong Hua, Leonard D. Brown and Chunyu Gao
Scape is a project aimed at allowing multiple users to collaborate on the same workbench using different AR and VR techniques. The authors have used head mounted projected displays with stereoscopic views, data gloves and surfaces coated with retro reflective material like walls and tabletops for this purpose. The tabletop shows a workbench view on which multiple users can place and interact with virtual objects. Each user can perceive a different view of the same table top and at a different level of detail. The walls are used for walkthrough views of the models on the workbench. These views can have different scales and details as required. The authors also developed a handheld device referred to as the magnifier widget. The magnifier can be used over the workbench to get a highly detailed view of objects under the magnifier.
The idea behind the project is very sound and is a well researched topic in the AR/VR domain. There is indeed a huge potential for developing collaborative work spaces. Some of the aspects of this project like the mentioned limitations of retro reflective surfaces make me doubt if this is the solution to the problem. Although it is a step forward there is still a lot of ground to be covered to get these systems just right.
A Practical Multi-viewer Tabletop Autostereoscopic Display
-Gu Ye, Andrei State, Henry Fuchs
This project improves on the Random hole display experiment. The authors have developed a system that uses a tabletop mounted with an auto stereoscopic display to render multiple views in real time to different users of the tabletop. The auto stereoscopic display is constructed from a commercial high definition display (LG) and a barrier with holes based on poisson distribution. The holes display different pixels to different users as they view the holes from different angles. The pixels can thus be illuminated in such a way as to give each user their own view of the tabletop. The users are tracked using a commercially available head tracking system. The approach does reduce the quality of the image experienced by each user. There are also issues with multiple users looking at the same pixel from different holes based on their angle. Some of the author’s work addresses this issue by using technique called error diffusion.
I am fascinated by the idea of these auto stereoscopic displays as this is the first time I have heard of them. There quality of each user’s view is directly dependent on the number of users which is one of the pitfalls of this approach. Nevertheless it is a novel solution to the multi user virtual reality tabletop environment.
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